A sad day

It was a rough day for me yesterday, but not as rough as it was for my friend Gail and her family. Unfortunatley my friend Gail lost her baby on Sunday, and there was a memorial service and graveside services yesterday. Standing there looking at that little coffin and knowing that Kendall did not have a chance to meet those who loved her, was hard. It was hard for me to watch my friend in pain and not be able to do anything to help her. I know she said it helps by my just being there, but that doesn't seem like enough.

It doesn't seem fair that "bad" things happen to such a good person, but I realize that God does work in mysterious ways. It is not for me to question what His plan it although it is hard not to.

The situation makes you appreciate your kids a little bit more knowing that birth is indeed a miracle. I try to remind myself how lucky I am to have healthy, curious kids when they dump out the junk drawer or spill the entire pitcher of water. It is really hard at that moment and time, but I usually feel grateful when they are sleeping for the night. (That feeling might also be a result of finally getting a moment to myself!)

Hot hands

Last night Justin learned why I am always telling him to stay away from the stove. I had just turned the stove off and pulled a pot of boiling noodles off the stove to drain. As I was over at the sink, Justin had climbed up on the bar stool and placed his hands on the still hot burner. He kind of yelped and as soon as I turned around, I knew what had happened. I grabbed an ice pack, shoved it in his hands, and gave him to Bruce and explained what had happened.

About a ten minutes later he was complaining about them hurting so I gave him some Tylenol. I couldn't really spray anything on his hands for the burns. At dinner time he just sat and looked at his food the whole time and held his hands on the ice pack. Finally when I was done eating I asked if he wanted me to feed him and of course he accepted eagerly. I feed him and then tried to convince him it was time to take a bath. He refused, and I decided I was not going to push the issue. Later that evening he was trying to fall asleep, but everytime he got close to sleeping, something must have reminded him of his hands. I gave him some Benadryl hoping that would make him tired enough that he forgot about his hands. He was still in pretty sorry shape this morning, but I told him that I was done babying him and he had to start using his hands again. I gave him some more Tylenol, but I am anxious to hear how much he used his hands today.

Birthday gifts

My birthday was Saturday and several years I started taking the boys to the local dollar store and picking out gifts for their Dad when it was his birthday. Bruce went that same route, but he obviously did not guide them to "practical" gifts as I would have. One year Bruce got a belt, an OSU mug and a football. He uses the belt, he drinks out of the mug but he does not really play football with the boys.


Saturday morning Bruce gets the "gift bag" out of his van and the boys hand me the gifts they picked out. I got a set of handcuffs from Nathan, a whoppee cushion from Darren and a big ball from Justin. Almost as soon as they handed them to me they asked, "You don't want these gifts do you Mom? Can we have them?" Jeez, did they have an ulterior motive in mind when they picked out my gifts??

Hoping for miracles

I went to the hospital yesterday afternoon and spent the afternoon visiting with my friend Gail. I can honestly say that I have known her my entire life, so when she called me yesterday morning crying, I wanted to be there for her. We spent the afternoon alternating between laughing, crying and just talking. I am not going to say anything "publicly" about what it going on as it is not my place to say other than she is going thru a very physical and emotional journey. Any prayers you can say for her, her family and unborn baby would be much appreciated.

Night owl

Running on about 3 hours of sleep today and still feeling pretty good. About lunch time yesterday I got some distressing news about one of my friends, so by the time I left work, I had a headache. I called and talked to her for a few minutes once I got home from work, and the headache got a little bit worse. Dealing with my three rowdy boys pushed that headache until I had a low level migraine. When I went to bed about 10:00 I lay down for a while and started to feel nauseous. At that point I decided to take some medicine for it and took two Excedrin Migraine. I fell asleep for about a half hour and then woke up wide awake. I tossed and turned for about a half hour and fell asleep again. About 2:00, I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. I lay in bed until about 3:00 willing myself to go back to sleep, but finally gave up. I decided to check my e-mails, see what was happening on Facebook and just watch TV for a while hoping that would make me tired. Nope, not going to happen. About 5:00 I decided since I am wide awake, I have no excuse not to exercise so I changed into some shorts. I think the gods were conspiring against me. I could not get my workout DVD to play because the player kept telling me no signal. I decided that I would work out with the Wii doing Wii Sports except….I could not get the remotes to work! After fifteen minutes of tinkering around, I just started doing some exercises that I recall from watching Biggest Loser. Then (oh yeah, there is more to the story) while I was in the shower I started feeling light headed and nauseous again. I was looking at the drain and wondering how well vomit would go down when I got extremely light headed. I hurried up and rinsed my hair out and quickly washed the potentially stinkier parts of my body. I got out of the shower and I ate a granola bar before lying down for ten minutes. Then I felt fine. Apparently I was suffering from low blood sugar and exerting myself to much. I looked this morning and an Excedrin Migraine has like 65mg of caffeine in it and I took two. Mountain Dew only has 56mg of caffeine. It is no wonder I couldn’t sleep with all that caffeine floating around in my system.

Strange looks

I know when my kids play outside they get some strange looks. I have had people ask us before if our kids were hurt because they saw them outside rolling down the sidewalk in a wheelchair. Yesterday it was a beautiful day out, although it was a bit windy. When the boys asked me if they could take their shirts off because they were hot I told them they were not allowed. They thought a good compromise might be to be allowed to take their shoes and socks off. I decided to let them since they were in and out of the sandbox, and I always enjoy being barefoot too. I am working around the house and look out the front window to see Darren riding his bike down the sidewalk. Then I glance again because something caught my eye. He is riding his bike in his t-shirt and jeans with no shoes or socks. He is also wearing his safety goggles he got at a Lowe’s Saturday building clinic and mittens. I go out and ask him why he is wearing goggles and mittens. Very patiently he explains to me, “Mom, these are my motorcycle gloves and goggles.” I guess he does pay attention to the eighty gazillion motorcycles that go past our house daily.

Ripped

On Sunday the boys I were sitting in the van while Bruce ran into Dollar General for something. A 20’ish looking guy walks out of the store and gets in his vehicle. I murmured, “Boy. He is ripped.”

Boys: What did you say Mom?
Me: Nothing.
Boys: Tell me!
Me: I said that he was ripped.
Boys: What does ripped mean?
Me: It means that you have a lot of muscles and you work out and you do not have a big belly.
Boys: Dad is not ripped is he?
Me: No he is not. That boy is though.

We went on with the day and I figured the boys forgot about it. Last night we were watching TV and a commercial for Planet Fitness came on. They showed two body builders and Darren, who was sitting on my lap, looks at me and said, “Those two guys are ripped!” I laughed out loud and then I had to explain to Bruce and Nathan what Darren just said. They all agreed that those two guys were ripped.

Opposite ends of the smell spectrum

While at the grocery store Sunday, the cashier at the register behind the lane I was checking out in asked me what kind of perfume I was wearing as she thought it smelled really good. I told her what kind and she said that she really liked how it smelled and that it probably wouldn’t smell as good on her. Rarely am I told that I smell good and asked what kind of perfume I am wearing….especially by strangers.

I told Mom that I would make a taco salad for our family Easter dinner. I made up the salad, went to Mom’s and had a good time and walked in the kitchen six hours later and thought that we had 10 large sweaty men in our house while we were gone. Apparently the taco seasoning smell was still lingering and the onion peels that I had threw away combined to make one ripe smell. We took the trash out when we got home because I did not like my house smelling like a locker room.

UPDATE on 4/11/12: That Sunday Darren picked a few 'bunches' of lilacs off of Grandma's lilac bush and gave them to me. I brought them home and put them in a cup. Nathan smells them yesterday and tells me that they stink....like a skunk!!

Easter Bunny mishap....almost

Saturday night we were at the neighbors for a campfire and because the next day was a big day, we were home by 10:00 pm. We get the kids to bed, and go to bed ourselves. About 3:30 am I wake up and realize that I did not play Easter Bunny last night. I knew that the boys would be up before I was in the morning so there was no chance that I could set it out before they woke up. I am scrambling around in my closet trying to find a pair of sandals or something so that I can go out to the garage and in my van to get the ‘supplies.’

I realize that their Easter baskets are upstairs and every noise I am making seems magnified about 10,000 times, so I was reluctant to go upstairs and get out their baskets. Because the Easter Bunny just got a single movie for all three boys, and some candy, I decided to just dump everything in front of the fireplace. Whew! Crisis barely averted.

D's kindergarten screening

What can I say about Darren’s screening? He did not test as high as I thought he would, but he did not answer all the questions correctly when I know he knows the answer. For example, the first station was body awareness where you had to draw a stick person. They look for hair, facial features, clothes, hands and feet. He basically drew a circle for the neck, another circle for the head and an oblong circle for the body. Then he drew sticks for arms and feet and that was it. He has drawn several stick people before, and he does put a lot of detail in it.

There was a station, not sure what it was called, that asked about objects. They asked him what a watch was. I guess he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say because he said, “it’s just a watch.” He answered that way several times until the lady asked, “what does a watch do?” Darren said “it tells time!” and his tone was like “duh, that’s a stupid question.” A rose was just a rose, but I have never pointed out a rose to him so why would he know it was a flower? What is a doctor? He helps guys was Darren’s response getting another mark against him. He couldn’t recall what month followed June. Nor could he tell us what made the summer hot.

Another station was counting. He did not know which picture had a pair of apples. Nor did he know which picture had the least amount of balloons. I was told that he could not count blocks correctly so they deducted points for that. He knows how to count the blocks; he was excited about being finished so he was rushing.

I know he is a lot smarter than he tested, but he also had a problem sitting still. I had claimed from the beginning that he is probably ready academically, but not sure on maturity. I saw the list of kids being tested that afternoon and he was the only kid with a 2007 birthday; all the rest had a 2006 birthday. When we talked to the kindergarten teacher Miss H, she thought that he would do okay, but she did mention that he would be one of the youngest kids in his grade. Now we have a tough decision on our hands. Darren really wants to go, but with all the issues we have with Nathan, I am more than a little leery.

Ramblings...

This past weekend was the volleyball and basketball alumni tournament. Later that evening there was a dance at the legion which I attended with my friends. Guess which baby sister was there and still wearing her clothes from volleyball? She came up to me immediately and said ‘Hi’ which is when I knew she was drunk as she doesn’t always like to talk to me in public. She was out there dancing with me and my friends in our ‘dance circle’ and apparently she talked to a few of them because they all came up to me and said that Stacey is just like me! Not sure if I should be flattered or insulted???

Yesterday was the Easter egg hunt and we took the boys up to the park for it. They had a firefighter dressed up like the Easter bunny and it gave Justin quite a scare until he recognized the voice of our buddy Mesh. Then he thought that he was cool because he knew the Easter bunny.

I always give Bruce a hard time about being from Versailles. I really gave him a hard time when I realized that at least three of his classmates were living in Loramie. I told him that they knew where the good life is. We saw one of his classmates at the kindergarten screening (more on that later) and she was picking on Bruce. Saying how she didn’t want her daughter going to school with a Kunk boy. I told her that I do not blame her, and I wasn’t kidding! Another of his classmates ran the volleyball alumni tourney this weekend. Then there are several more people that Bruce knows that are from Versailles that currently live in Loramie. It must really be a great place to live.